So I found a usable looking red bumper on ebay. I sorted out transport to collect it all the way from up north, and then.. Final 20 minutes got distracted, it sold to someone for just £12.50. The black one I had on watchlist to buy in case I missed out? That's sold already. I can see this taking a long time.

Oh no, gutted! That’s happened to me before with whole cars!

Im also keeping a look out.

I know you have an issue with the black bit underneath but does that really matter. You can buy a brand new painted to code bumper for £179.

Also, although there are no good ones on there at the moment, have you considered a sport bumper. There are several red sport rear ones but it’s an option that will enhance the look of the car too.

This one is still for sale. A few scratches on one side which might even come out with rubbing compound. I would be buying this one.

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https://www.ebay.co.uk/ulk/itm/143101194590

That's the one from a page or two ago - seller sent me more pics, theres a 1 inch thick scuff about a foot long down one of the shaped curves in the side, right through into the plastic. Not sure it can ever look right with that much material missing.

SCORE!

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/FIAT-500-Hatch-Bumper-Front-2009-27427/303071696317

Didn't take too long thinking about that one...

system11 said:

SCORE!

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/FIAT-500-Hatch-Bumper-Front-2009-27427/303071696317

Didn't take too long thinking about that one...

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Blimey that’s a bargain.

They also had a bonnet - it's in pretty poor shape, faded & lots of lacquer peeling but it was £60 and I was there with a big enough car so I took it, it'll certainly do for now. Also a pair of undamaged front lights for £50 - those might end up on ebay, we'll see how everything lines up.

Not sure the red is quite the same shade, we'll see - super happy with the price either way though, I even managed to scavenge the missing screws needed for the top of the bumper and some I was missing from the undertray.

V5 has arrived - so where on this is it supposed to say if the car was a salvage car?

system11 said:

V5 has arrived - so where on this is it supposed to say if the car was a salvage car?

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As a cat N it doesn’t. Only Cat S is shown on the bottom of the front page.

Today:
* fit new hinges - these are currently only loosely screwed down, it's very easy to adjust them in situ if you take the wipers and scuttle panel off.
* test fit new bonnet - it's got loads of stone chips and a lot of flaking lacquer - I'm sealing these in bit by bit by applying a very thin lacquer which gets sucked into the delamination stopping it getting worse. Ideally needs a respray.
* adjust wings slightly - they've both flared out towards the top of where the light fits as they were shunted upwards by the crash - the driver side is worst, I'm pretty much at max adjustment, next step is to call a dent removal specialist to see how they can help, this wasn't possible without a bonnet in place to give a guide. if the problem can't be corrected I might be looking for a pair of wings.
* tried to correct the bolt distance of the rail flanges - pulled it in to 940mm with a giant ratchet strap but it just went back to 949mm as soon as I released it despite leaving it on for half an hour. yes it's a monster ratchet strap, anything smaller would break!

I really need a photo of the wing edge/front with the bonnet open on a car with a totally undamaged wing. I'm not sure what shape the metal should be where the bonnet closes over it.

Next steps are flushing out the radiator and intercooler (need paraffin / similar for that) and refitting them & the fan to the slam panel. I need to find some mini plastic crocodile clip for bumper test fit as I don't want to rivet in the new clip strips until I know whether or not the wings are staying.

One problem, I did find the clips on the edge of the scuttle cover were both broken. They're white ones which push over an exposed screw thread. Someone went crazy with some black sealing rubber - I found all the clip parts but there's no way superglue is rescuing these.

What are they called, is there a part number? Might be a job for Fiat parts department. Edit: Part number: 71 752 832

The nearside one looks ok. Once you get the wax pen marks off and dab some paint on that edge it will be barely noticeable.

I had very similar with one I’ve got. I heated it up a bit from the inside with a blowtorch and then (wearing gloves), pushed it out from inside. I then got a glue dent removal tool and made it pretty good. Not perfect but certainly doesn’t warrant a new wing.

If you get a block of wood under those tips and hit with a rubber mallet you can flatten them down sufficiently. Again, once you’ve got some paint on them that will make a big difference.

Try fitting the headlights and you will see what sort of gap you have.

Don’t know if these pics will help. Just the tips bent over.

Just hung the lights on (unbroken from scrap yard) as they still have the small hook clip - aside from drivers wing it looks really good, bumper to although it was too far back as I'd pushed it as far in as I could to hang without falling off. Slam panel position is about 5mm too low all round as it was just a rough fit and the combination of that and the drivers wing stops the bonnet completely closing.

Plan:
sort wings out
readjust bonnet hinges, wings & bonnet bolts to line up - tighten down
clean fan & radiator pack, fit intercooler then radiator slam panel, reattach hoses as each is fitted, attach wiring for fan & horn
fill coolant & check for drips.
put jack under slam panel to keep in position

attach crash bars to slam panel, fingertight all bolts.
fingertight bolt fit lights, attach wiring
jack up the slam panel a bit so the bonnet latches correctly & adjust rubber bonnet stops
check bonnet horizontal gap vs slam panel top edge is consistent across bumper width and that lights line up well vs bonnet/wings
test fit bumper to check L/R position of slam panel using bumper/bonnet edge as a guide
mess around probably for hours until completely happy with alignment

remove bumper
tighten upper slam bolts
loosen subframe arm bolts
tighten lower crash bar bolts
tighten subframe arm bolts
rivet on wing clip strips
tighten lamp bolts for best fit with bonnet closed, readjust rubber bonnet stops
fit condenser
fit bumper
attach driving lamp wiring

fit wheel liners & undertray
refit scuttle & wipers.
refit air cleaner assembly
check engine oil level
run engine for a few minutes, re-check coolant & oil levels.

take car for wheel alignment check, headlight alignment check, aircon regas



I highly recommend the scuttle removal & fingertight hinge bolts thing - they currently look like theyre in crazy positions vs where they were once fitted on another car and where mine were (pen lines), but the end results are great - only test & tighten the bolts when holding the bonnet open from the middle - as soon as you put it on the stay it can pull the hinges out of place again.

Also I've ended up with a single horn and a dual horn. Can't make my mind up which one suits the car more, I'm sure my neighbours are not appreciating the tests. I was going to regas the aircon myself but the local F1 autocentre are charging less than the regas kit costs and no messing around with a canister deposit.

A days work then[emoji3][emoji3][emoji3]

Don’t forget you do have some side to side and up and down movement on the bonnet catch.

I would suggest getting that right, or at least shutting before fitting the bumper as if for some reason you shut it but then can’t open it, you’re in a world of hurt getting it open. Never happened to me but I’m sure it will one day.

I sent photos to some dent repair places, for:


Remove dent from windscreen pillar
Remove dent from driver arch
Remove dent from driver wing at light
Remove dent from passenger wing at light

Quotes so far:
£430 inc VAT

Be interesting to see how these go. It would be nice to get them taken out as the rest of the car is dent free, but spending a lot would defeat the whole point of buying a cheap car and doing it up.

system11 said:

I sent photos to some dent repair places, for:


Remove dent from windscreen pillar
Remove dent from driver arch
Remove dent from driver wing at light
Remove dent from passenger wing at light

Quotes so far:
£430 inc VAT

Be interesting to see how these go. It would be nice to get them taken out as the rest of the car is dent free, but spending a lot would defeat the whole point of buying a cheap car and doing it up.

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That seems a lot and most of it you can do yourself. Depends how fussy you are but I certainly wouldn’t be doing that, you can buy wings for around £50 each if you’re that fussy.

I decided to learn intercooler cleaning with my original intercooler since that has a cracked mounting at the top.

Tried degreaser on the outside, this did nothing at all. Since it's not that dirty I stopped wasting my time with that.

Poured paraffin inside and let it sit a while, swished it around, black water came out at the end. However, aside from just leaving it sitting there for a few days, is there a good way to ensure everything has come out? I saw a horror story on another forum where some paraffin had stayed in the intercooler and blew someones engine up.

Took a look this evening - bone dry now. There's a full 2L plastic bottle of very dark paraffin out there I need to take to the tip now, it looks sparkly clean inside.

I encountered what some people were warning about. It -looked- bone dry, but gave it a few light taps with my hand and some more came out - definitely a hair drier job - fun thing is you can throw hot air in and it's only warm when it comes out of the other end, so I suppose it cools well enough.

Second intercooler now having a paraffin bath. Fiat dealer now has the scuttle clips in stock.

Also found a 500 owner at work who let me make some very good photos of a totally undamaged wing end. I need a rubber hammer. Shame I don't have a trashed wing to practise on.